Murkowski Loses Primary
By streiff Posted in Archived — Comments (35) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski had his butt handed to him by Republican voters yesterday.
Finishing third in a field of three with a dismal 19% of the vote (56% of the vote counted as of this story) it is safe to say that Murkowski's long career has ended in repudiation by his own party.
Not being even casually acquainted with Alaska politics I can't opine on the BIG MEANING of this beyond that this may very well go into the Guiness Book of World Records.
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I don't think Edwards was actually CONVICTED until after that election, though everyone had known for years that he was a crook. This race pitted a crook vs a klansman vs an incompetent. The poor incumbent Roemer came in 3rd out of that motley crew.
For those of you not following LA politics at that time, Edwards had a way with one-liners that could rival anyone. Some people found it charming.
Frank Murkowski was just awful. He had countless problems (like appointing his daughter to his old US Senate seat, buying a jet on state funds and then using it for political purposes, messing up the gas line deal, destroying the senior's longevity bonus, and I could go on and on...) And the people who worked with him aren't much better. Randy Ruedrich, chairman of the Republican party, just recently had a major scandal in which he was involved in politics on state time (at the very least). Ruedrich had to pay the largest ethics fine ever in the history of Alaska. And overall, they were all just incompetent.
Not only did Sarah Palin kick Murkowski out of office, but she also just called for Ruedrich's resignation.
Sarah Palin is a wonderful Republican who can handle the media and knows the issues. She is extremely dedicated to the cause, and I can't even begin to praise her enough. In Alaska, one of the "reddest" states in the country, she will set the standard for Republicans. No more of this Ted Stevens/Lisa Murkowski/Don Young moderate, corrupt establishment. Sarah Palin is known most of all in Alaska for her honesty and integrity, and she will be a huge force in moving Alaska forward.
And out of the three candidates, she's the only one who could crush Tony Knowles in November. Tony couldn't even defeat Lisa Murkowski in 2004, so I feel quite confident that Sarah will pull of the general.
This is wonderful!! Simply wondeful!!
is the quixiotic neophyte part. Everything is easy and wonderful when you don't know enough. Before the day is over, I'll find somebody with the Palin Campaign and open my checkbook. That said, this is not going to be easy; a large chunk of her vote is NP. There were over twice as many votes cast in the R primary as in the D largely because there was no contest and no interest over there. That changes today and Palin's extraordinarily good press ends today. The Anchorage Daily News isn't locally known as the Anchorage Daily Knowles for no reason and Knowles chose that "Experience AND Integrity" theme for a reason as well. They think they have something on her; we'll see if they do and how much people care.
In Vino Veritas
This post and your earlier posts looked like talking points straight out of Murkowski's campaign literature (even if you did have sense enough not to vote for Frank). You had tried to portray Murkowski as misrepresented and unpopular for his tough choices, and Sarah Palin as a lightweight who could never win.
Look, these ideas went down in flames last night. Palin's 51% crushed your incumbent's 19% in the landside victory for Palin.
Knowles v. Palin will be a tough battle, but you and I both know that Murkowski could *never* have survived the general. He would have been DOA. Palin was (and now is) the best candidate to beat Tony Knowles. Based on current polls, past voting trends, and last night's election, I'm going to predict that Palin will beat Knowles somewhere around 10%.
Although your former boss might have lost miserably last night, don't try to misrepresent the state of Alaskan politics.
Go Sarah!!
you've been here only a week. You haven't earned the right to call people out, period. Especially not with bullhockey.
Take this to heart if you want to remain here.
I've been reading a lot longer than I've been posting. And I've been involved in Alaska politics a lot longer than that.
All I'm saying is that this spin that Achance is putting on the news out of Alaska was firmly rejected yesterday.
either I wasn't very clear or you aren't heavily into reading.
What you were given was a warning not an invitation to dialog.
But I don't see why I should be warned from offering a different interpretation of these events. I have read RedState for a long, long time, and only decided to start posting when I decided that Alaska was being seriously misrepresented.
I can only think that you don't read very well. You've been registered for a week and you start out by being extraordinarily rude when you had no call to be, especially since it seems like you didn't bother to read Achance's post.
So you might conclude that life isn't fair, and you'd be correct. Stick around for a while, build some credibility (and calling Palin winning with 51% a landslide really isn't doing you any favors in this regard. A win, yes, a landslide? Hardly.) then call people out.
Look, I don't intend on going on about this any further. Either take the hint, or don't. Your choice.
It was a competitive three way race. Palin got more votes than both Binkley and Murkowski combined. Binkley was the closest to Palin with about 30% Palin earned a 21% difference from Binkley and a 32% difference from Frank. If this were a two way race in which the winner is the challenger, I would qualify either of those percentages as a landslide.
When I first started reading RedState, I was not thrilled with its coverage of Alaska. I have become continually more disappointed in it. Although Achance has excellent background info that I do appreciate, I still hold that his interpretation of Alaskan politics come from a perspective that was just defeated last night.
For the record, Achance posted the first comment between us and said that I "did not know enough" and added several other impolite comments. I'm going to continue to disagree with his comments that seem to only reiterate a defeated governor's talking points.
no intention of bickering with you. But 49% of her party voted against her. Simple math. If you can't get that through your head you don't understand politics.
This ends. Now.
I think you are wrong to. 51% in a 3way race is a lot. It could be considered borderline huge in this scenario.
And what is up with the 'calling him out' business. The other poster can defend himself if he wants.. you are acting like his big brother coming to his rescue.
"Took the nickname Troll long before BlogTrolls existed..."
55 or 60 in a 3-way race, yes. 49% voted against her that's 51-49 in anyone's book.
And the rest, my man, is my business not yours.
of this; some battles ain't worth fighting. But thanks for your support Strieff. I understand naive enthusiasm, I just don't think in wins elections. This is going to be a tough one.
In Vino Veritas
talk to me about it in November.
It doesn't bother me that FM lost, the administration deserved to, and I chose to leave it rather than put up with his appointees any longer.
And you don't have a clue as to what my ideas are beyond the very little you might have bothered to read here. As to misrepresentation, I picked her to win the primary from the start and said it would be on NP votes; think I was right. She won by a larger margin than I expected, but she won. I've been on the receiving end of the Knowles slime machine. I'll be interested to see how you like it when it fires up over the next few days. And more importantly, how many of those NPs will stay with her after the slime blizzard.
I watched the wheels come off the Hickel Administration when they couldn't figure out how to get the government to do anything and couldn't stand the ADN's relentless attacks and the unions' mau mauing of their appointees. I watched as FM listened to the lobbyists rather than his supporters inside the government and left the holdovers in place and didn't do any consequential reorganization so that a Republican could actually run the thing. After the first year or so, it was simply a free for all of people trying to feather their own nest.
Now we'll all see if Ms. Palin can first get past Knowles and the News and then get a grip on the government.
In Vino Veritas
Not only will I talk to you about the results in November, but I think that I also have Palin's landslide victory last night to suggest that Palin is more than capable of winning the general. Although your posts have a good deal of excellent history and background info, your analysis has been extremely slanted and off.
What basis do you have for your doubt of Palin? You keep making reference to a ADN/Knowles bombshell against Palin. Would you like to substantiate that? Do I think that the ADN and Knowles will have a lot of negative comments? Yes - but not more than we would see in any other typical election.
I have seen or heard nothing verify this theory about ADN/Knowles, and it was used primarly by Murkowski's campaign to create fear among voters. Obviously, it failed.
Last night's landslide victory was the beginning of the end for this slanted reporting. It will be a tough race, but all indications suggest that ultimately Sarah will soundly beat Knowles. My biggest concern for Sarah is her financial situation, so make sure that check gets out! :)
like the proverbial cow and the flat rock today and I can't do the stuff I really want and need to do, so I have time for this. You said:
"Last night's landslide victory was the beginning of the end for this slanted reporting."
Let me assure you that it will NEVER stop. If she wins, it will never stop. The MacClatchey chain has an unending quest to secure more congressional representation for California in Alaska, and they will never allow a good thing to be said about any Republican in this state unless it serves their purposes, hence their fawning approval of Ms. Palin.
Elsewhere, you asked for evidence; I don't have any, but I don't need any and neither do they. Understand, these are people that philosophically deny the existence of truth, so they can do or say whatever they want; they're "good people" after all.
Unless you've felt the Knowles Machine's laser dot on your forehead, and I have, you don't have any idea what it is like to be the object of these people's attention. I only hope Ms. Palin is up to it.
In Vino Veritas
"a man's admiration for absolute government is proportinate to the contempt he feels for those around him". Tocqueville
I think we need to have another "Hottest Women in US Politics" vote. That's just me, though. :)
There is no theory of evolution, just a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live.
Let her hair down and Accept her good Looks and capitalize on them
or
Undo a few shirt/jacket buttons and wear a shorter skirt and some obvious lingerie and fully endorse her current, half-hearted attempt at "pornstar librarian" as someoe else described her look.
"Always be honest with yourself even if you are honest with no one else...
...It helps you keep track of your lies..."
--Myself
I can speak freely. I couldn't allow myself to say much bad about my old boss as long as he was in the race. It is hard to know just where to start cataloging everything that went wrong with the Murkowski Administration, but I believe the fundament is the fact that neither Frank nor any of the people close to him had a clue how to run the executive branch or what they wanted it to do. The personnel decisions were astoundingly bad from the outset and the very worst was the Lisa appointment; it colored everything we did for the first two years. The personnel decisions finally got so bad that I decided to end a long and fairly successful career on July 1 rather than try to put up with the people the Governor's Office was putting or allowing to be put into managerial positions.
From the outset, Murkowski acted like the typical powerful legislator and thought that saying "make it so" would produce results, but when it didn't the Gov's Office wouldn't hold anyone's feet to the fire. Several of FM's top staff were refugees from George Weurch's equally failed Republican mayoral administration in Anchorage and helped FM down the same path as Weurch trod.
FM compounded his personnel problems by leaving most of the Knowles Administration in place from the director level down. Consequently, FM was leaked, thwarted, and in at least one case actively sabotaged by these holdover appointees. Even when not acting against FM, these holdovers never acted for him, so the government was largely directionless.
Jim Clark, FM's Chief of Staff, has his own managerial liabilities, but so long as he kept a firm grip on things, the government more or less chugged along. When he stepped away to focus on gas line negotiations, the wheels came off the Administration and it became a free for all. Republicans in Alaska usually pride themselves in personal and governmental integrity, but FM's appointees as well as the holdovers outdid even the Knowles people for getting their hooves in the trough.
Randy Reudrich's bad act was nothing in the overall scheme of bad acts in government, but no Republican can get away with that stuff. The Knowles Administration ran whole campaigns on state time and on state equipment and nobody said boo about it. Randy brought a big chunk of private sector arrogance and pigheadedness with him and when told he couldn't do things or the steps he had to take to do them legally just pronounced the rule or law to be stupid and kept on doing it until Ms. Palin brought the house down on him - something I think she shouldn't have done unless she had gone to Commissioner Miller or COS Clark first without result. I'm told she didn't but don't have first hand knowledge. If it is true that she didn't go to the boss first, she'll have to answer for that one.
While anyone who knows Alaska knows that a jet would be a good thing to have, they also know that it is a third rail issue here, former governor Sheffield having almost done himself in over it twenty years ago. That one was just FM's arrogance and he has no one to blame but himself.
The Longevity Bonus Program is just a socialistic waste of money and at the time FM did it in, the state was facing huge budget shortfalls. It was the kind of tough decision that any governor has to make here. I shall never forget a conversation I had down at my boat with two old guys with nearby slips; both were calling FM everything but well bred over cutting out their longevity bonus, but even if they were getting the whole $250/month, that wouldn't have bought the fuel for either of their boats for a weekend, and that was when gas was under $2.
And finally, the Press was unrelentingly opposed to everything FM said or did; we could not buy a good word from the Anchorage Daily Knowles or the Juneau Empire. I was personally responsibe for some of the more controversial things we did, and I never once got a call from an ADN reporter and could count on my fingers the times a JE reporter contacted me, yet every morning I'd open the clips and read about what the opposition thought about it.
All that said, the government looks a lot different from Governor's Office that it does from the Wasilla mayor's office and neither Ms. Palin nor most of the people around her are going to know where the restrooms and light switches are. The "small government, cut spending" mantra is quixiotically naive. The state government IS the Alaska economy - especially with oil at over $70/bbl. Even if a Palin Administration tries a "lean and mean" budget, there are sixty people in the Legislature that will want to spend every dime and then some - and the people will demand that they do so. The good people of Alaska don't like to pay for anything, but they sure like all that good stuff that oil money buys for them.
I just sat out my first gubernatorial primary in almost thirty years and for the first time in a very long time sat home and watched the returns come in on TV - and felt like the old fire horse listening to the bell ring. I could no longer support FM, but couldn't bring myself to oppose the guy whose paycheck I took for three and a half years and who was personally good to me. Alaska cannot stand another four years of Tony Knowles' skillfully triangulated stagnation; we already missed the Nineties economically while he set himself up for the Senate run; he'll just reprise that in anticipation of another run at Lisa in '10. Time to saddle up and ride to the sound of the guns.
In Vino Veritas
I've enjoyed your posts on the AK GOV race. However, your analysis seemed woefully inaccurate which makes it hard to know how much trust to put in it in the future. All of these quotes come from your past diaries.
My take is something along the lines of a 33-33-34 Republican Primary, and were I a betting man, I'd give Palin the 34 on the NP vote she will garner. That will insure the election of Knowles in November.
Either Murkowski or Binkley could handily defeat Knowles, especially with Stevens and Young's help, but a scandal ridden nobody has no chance against him and whether true or not, Palin will be covered in scandal accusations in the first week after a primary victory.
Since you had totally written off polling in Alaska showing Palin with a large lead and the best chance against Murkowski, I inquired:
However, I can't take your "polls don't work here" contention on face value. Do you have any sources showing past polling to be inaccurate? If I recall, the Murkowski vs. Knowles Seante race polled very accurately. The race was always close and the result was just as close as the final polls. Without further evidence, I have to believe the findings in the Rasmussen polls (and others) that Murkowski will lose badly to Knowles and that Murkowski has undeniably horrid approval ratings (in the 20s). As for the other candidates, I've only seen one poll (the Rasmussen one that is upthread). It looks very good for Pallin in the general election where she wins most Republicans and independents over a known and relatively popular Democrat.
Your response evaded the question about why you distrust polls in AK. The last Rasmussen poll showed Palin winning 43-30-17. Undecideds broke her way and again polling is more accurate than a single anecdote from an "insider."
At this point, I really have to assume that you have a conscious or unconscious bias against Ms. Palin. Everything you have said in your diaries and comments about her is negative. You tried to prop up Mr. Murkowski or the other candidate but to no avail. Polling (that has been accurate in the 04 Senate race and the 06 primary) shows Palin as the most competitive person in the Governor race. She starts with a 51-38 lead over Knowles according to Rasmussen. Despite your personal views, all evidence points to Ms. Palin being the best candidate for the Republican nomination.
her the winner from the beginning. She ran stronger or Binkley ran weaker than I expected. I will freely admit that Binkley ran much less well than I expected, but I am not in Anchorage and it is hard to even feel a Republican pulse in Juneau. I deliberately walked away from it all and sat out the primary, so I had no real "insider" information or polling. If you will recall, I said I was only relying on "conventional wisdom" about polling, especially in off year primaries, so maybe they've gotten better.
I don't have a bias towards her specifically, though I made it clear that I did not approve of how she handled the Ruedrich matter if the way I saw it transpire is really what happened; all she has to do is say what really happened. The characterization I rendered of her will be the way the other side portrays her; you'll recall I said it didn't have to be true; Knowles' "Experience and Integrity" theme is no accident. I do have two preconceptions, maybe even biases:
First, the Democrats have stealthily taken over almost every significant city/borough government in the state, centered on Mark Begich's Anchorage Mayor's office (Mark is the son of former congressmen Nick Begich)and they have a formidable organization. David Ramseur was Knowles' primary political operative when he was Governor, went to Begich when Ulmer lost, and will undoubtedly run things for Knowles again. He is both good and ruthless and the Anchorage Daily News and the NBC Affiliate in ANC are essentially Knowles house organs. The Knowles people are very, very good at getting themselves elected and no one should look at those vote totals and feel like it is going to be an easy thing or that those numbers will hold.
Second, Ms. Palin is the inheritor of a now twenty or so year line of Anchorage/Matanuska Valley politicians who have said all the right conservative/Republican things to great acclaim in the primary/campaign and when actually elected Governor or Legislator, and not many of them were, were not able to ever get a grip on the government or carry out a legislative agenda. If you'll look at my responses to our self-styled quixiotic neophyte, I laid out some of the more prominent examples. I've watched some of the same people fritter away governorships and veto-proof legislative majorities.
I stand by my assertion that the Knowles people think they have something on her and I know them well enough to know that it doesn't have to be true. We'll see if they really do, whether the voters care enough about it for it to matter, and whether the "positive" campaigning strategy she's adopted will prevent her from responding appropriately to the inevitable slime attack.
And finally, this site isn't exactly anonymous and Alaska is essentially a big small town, so anyone familiar with Alaska's government could fairly easily figure out who I am. I was fearful of becoming an issue myself and picking up the ADN or Empire one morning and reading, "Former Murkowki aide says ..." So perhaps I was too positive towards Murkowski.
In Vino Veritas
Art -- this site isn't anonymous and we all here figured out who you are a long time ago. At least people are talking in some depth about these issues.
Beyond - we don't want Frank anymore. Regardless of his strengths, and there were many, the skills that make one a good senator are different than those that make one a good executive and I don't think he ever really mastered either the skill set required or the fact that he was playing in a different sandbox with different rules.
I've got to go with AChance on this one - Palin is our best shot to hold the office, but Knowles is a tough opponent who was already twice elected to this same office. He has pretty concrete ideas on what needs to be done, not that I agree with them mind you, but at least he's got some and Palin is kind of thin in this department.
Plus - Knowles has a well deserved reputation for utter ruthlessness on the campaign trail. This is going to get ugly and it is going to do so very fast. Binkley's parting shot about her ethics issues from 10 years ago are likely to be Tony's opening salvo within the week.
Also agreeing with AChance - here's a fun science experiment (DO NOT TRY WITHOUT PROTECTIVE GEAR) Watch just how fast the Anchorage Daily Snooze switches from fawning approval to vicious attack dog in their coverage of Palin - careful you may get whiplash !
a Hahn Device (a NASCAR driver's head restraint) to handle that change of direction!
In Vino Veritas
I thought a Hahn device was the one that converts Democratic press releases into 'news' accounts. Though I bet when they turn ON the Hahn device, readers will need a HANS strapped on.
--
If you're seeing shades of gray, it's because you're not looking close enough to see the black and white dots.
I can't keep up with the Three Letter Acronyms and Four Letter Acronyms. But it was clever, Neil.
In Vino Veritas
starting this weekend and I hope to catch up with some of my old friends back in Alaska. Been away for 9 years so what I Did know about the political situation (I was 14, what did I know) is pretty out of date. Hopefully I will be able to get an idea of what's going on in my homestate...
"Always be honest with yourself even if you are honest with no one else...
...It helps you keep track of your lies..."
--Myself
Up there with the time Louisiana's incumbent gov. finished 3d in a 3-way race with a convicted felon and a former head of the KKK.
"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill